


resistance

by tusktooth



Category: Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Engineering, M/M, Marvel Trumps Hate 2019, Mutual Pining, Studying, bg amerikate/cassiejonas/billyteddy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:48:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22082089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tusktooth/pseuds/tusktooth
Summary: When one of his classmates shows up hungover to the first day of class, David decides to help the guy out. Little does he know, that would be the beginning of something much more important.
Relationships: David Alleyne/Tommy Shepherd, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 45
Collections: Marvel Trumps Hate 2019





	resistance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asexualsartemis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asexualsartemis/gifts).



> [mel!!!](http://asexualsartemis.tumblr.com/) thank you so much for bidding on my mth auction a few months back and then giving me such fantastic prompts! I really hope that you like this! this pair is just amazing thank you for giving me an excuse to write them!  
> [you can find me on tumblr here!!!](http://tdeckers.tumblr.com/)

Though he knew that he counted himself among the few, David was excited to take Electronics. He had flourished in circuits, understanding how to analyze a circuit better than most of his peers. This class would be introducing numerous new devices, mostly involving semiconductors, that were far more complex than the simple things they had worked with in the past and, thus, more interesting.

The only issue with this class was that he didn’t have any friends with it. It wasn’t all too much of an issue: he was here to learn after all, but he always seemed to enjoy his coding classes most as they were the classes he had with his friend and fellow IT employee, Jonas.

The teacher only briefly went over the syllabus before getting into the material, something that he appreciated immensely. He could refer to the syllabus any time he pleased but class time was limited. The more time the teacher spent lecturing, the more information that he could fully understand.

About ten minutes into the lecture, a boy with disheveled bleach white hair in an oversized hoodie walked in, dark sunglasses over his eyes. Between his tardiness and the fact he was clearly extremely hungover, David had no idea why he actually bothered to come to class.

He seemed to look up at the rows further back before realizing that they were all full or only had open seats in the middle before slumping into the seat at the end of the front row. The boy defeated as he slid his sunglasses onto the top of his head, revealing the dark bags under his eyes.

“I’m glad we’re starting off the semester so well,” the professor, an older man with steely blue eyes and an ugly goatee commented.

The boy didn’t look up, obviously not conscious enough to comprehend that the professor had made a comment about him.

The professor walked in front of his desk and cleared his throat, not happy about being ignored.

This time, he looked up.

“Seeing as you seem to value your own time over mine, which you’re paying for, and you find my class so enthralling, I’m going to ask you a question, just to test your knowledge. What’s your name?”

He smirked. “That one’s easy, Doc. It’s Tommy.”

The professor’s angry frown deepened. “Thomas, I’d appreciate some respect in my classroom. Now, why don’t you define what an acceptor is.”

“It’s something that accepts-,” he looked around at the whiteboard, trying to get something, anything from the scrawl on it.

David silently hoped that the definitions that had been erased a few minutes ago would reappear in some feat of magic.

“-Energy,” he finished.

“Energy,” the professor repeated, chuckling to himself. “You know, if you’re a junior and you still can’t take your education seriously, you’re never going to make it in the engineering industry. What are you, a double E?”

He nodded.

“About 80% of this class is in the same boat as you. A room of people who will be competing against you in a job market which is clearly a bit more competitive than you assumed. A room of people that came to my class prepared, presentable, and on time. Do you think you’re the one that they’ll choose to hire?”

“Well, professor,” he started, not as visibly shaken as David would have been. “There are only about three people in this class that are as downright cute as me, so I’ll take my chances.”

The class erupted into laughter as the professor’s face grew redder and redder. “Are you here to learn or cause disruptions and give terrible answers? You know, I’ve taught kids like you before and-”

Unable to bear this endless argument anymore, David decided to pipe in. “No disrespect, Professor, but technically his response wasn’t completely wrong. Perhaps it wasn’t a very specific definition, but in the strictest sense, it wasn’t incorrect.”

He raised an eyebrow and turned to David. “Excuse me-”

“David.”

“Yes, David, why don’t you explain to the class why Thomas was right in his definition of an acceptor.”

“Well, acceptors take electrons from semiconductors, leaving holes behind, which is what we’re most concerned with,” he said. “But, in doing so, they must break a bond which releases some energy into the system, some of which they may use to form new bonds. Though we aren’t concerned with the specifics of chemistry in this class, it still remains plain and true.”

The professor stood there in silence for a moment and then smiled. “Good luck beating him out for a job, Thomas. Now, I’m going to get back to the lecture.”

The boy, Tommy, looked to David and mouthed “Thank you.”

David shrugged in response. It wasn’t a big deal and, besides, he didn’t do it for him.

* * *

After class that day, David assumed that he’d never actually speak to Tommy again. He seemed like the type of guy who went through life doing the bare minimum, at least in the case of his academics, and David was the polar opposite of that. They weren’t supposed to interact. He suspected that Tommy wouldn’t be in a class very often and, when he was, that he would probably sit in the back. After the first week, that had very much proven to be true.

He had forgotten to consider the possibility that they may be in the same lab section until the following Wednesday when he was looking around a room of his peers that he wasn’t all that familiar with, hoping that one of them would take him into their lab group. That was when Tommy walked up to him.

“Need a partner, smart stuff?” he asked with a smile.

He looked around, desperate to find anyone who might not just be using him for his brain but came up empty. “I guess.”

Tommy slapped his shoulder. “Perfect. You get the resistors and the op-amp. I’ll grab the cables and start hooking up the source and shit.”

“And shit?” he repeated.

“Yeah, the multimeter, the oscilloscope, a second source,” he replied. “Shit. I haven’t exactly read through the lab beyond doing the prelab which was, by the way, cake. I’ll figure it out, though.”

“Right,” he said half-heartedly before heading toward the cabinet to get what he was told to grab. Maybe he would be lucky and someone would take mercy on him and join their lab group as a third person. Based on the state of the room at the moment, it didn’t appear like that was going to be the case.

Once he had gathered the supplies, he returned to the lab bench and laid the resistors out from lowest to highest value.

“Would you like me to hook it up?” he asked Tommy.

He shrugged. “I can do it. We should measure the resistors first, though. Sometimes people put them in the wrong spot or they just have screwy values. Maybe you should write it all down because, I have to tell you, my handwriting is a minor trainwreck.”

The measured the resistors, David taking care to report the resistances as accurately as the shoddy equipment from the 80s would allow him to. Then he tried to keep a keen eye on Tommy he wired up the circuit but found it difficult to keep up. He worked quickly and with an air of confidence. David would be triple checking his placement of every circuit element while working at a slow pace, but Tommy seemed to have everything wired up correctly in about thirty seconds flat.

“Ready to go,” he said confidently.

“We should have the TA check it,” he replied. “We don’t want to fry the board or anything.”

Tommy snorted. “We won’t fry the board. I’m not an  _ idiot _ . But we can get the TA’s go-ahead before starting it up if you want.”

He nodded and raised his hand, having to wait about ten minutes for their lab TA to finally get to their table and look over their circuit briefly before a pleased look spread across his face and he said they were good to go. Something told him that the other students weren’t having good luck wiring everything up correctly on the first try.

“How did you do that?” David asked Tommy after the TA had moved on to a different lab group.

He raised an eyebrow. “How do I do what?”

“Wire everything up so quickly.”

“I’m just fast, I guess,” he said with a shrug. “Now let’s take some measurements.”

It was in that moment that David realized that perhaps he had misjudged Tommy in their previous interactions. He thought him to be an incompetent student that just barely slipped by and, while the last part could still very much be true for all that he knew about him, it seemed that he was wrong about him being incompetent. Tommy was very much capable and intelligent if today were to be taken as evidence. Perhaps this lab was going to be much more enjoyable than he had expected.

* * *

David’s job at IT was less than exciting. He worked the desk and was often unable to assist with the problems that people who came up to his desk had, instead having to forward people to one of his superiors. It was rarely busy except when an email virus started spreading through the university email system, which only happened about every nine or so months.

The only grace that saved him from the intense boredom of this job was Jonas, who more often than not had shifts at the same time as him. Jonas had a similar mind to him, being focused on logic beyond all else. Paired with a good ethic, he was unbeatable in the classroom and in labs with his stellar code. The fact that Jonas wasn’t at MIT or some other illustrious tech school was beyond him, but it seemed certain that a distinguished graduate program was in his future.

Today, as David told him the story of his lab with Tommy, he was surprised to find that Jonas evidently wasn’t listening. “What did I just tell you?” he asked.

“Huh,” Jonas asked, looking up from his phone. “You’re dating some guy from your lab.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Definitely not. He still doesn’t seem like a hard worker and that’s certainly a turnoff. I was just a bit surprised by him. What’s up with you?”

Jonas’ cheeks flushed read. “I’m texting this girl.”

“Girl?” David asked with a raised eyebrow. “Since when do you talk to girls?”

“I can talk to anyone!” he exclaimed.

He gave his friend a pointed look.

“Fine, jerk,” he said with a sigh. “She came in yesterday because she was having issues with her laptop. I helped her out, we talked, and I just about sweated through my shirt but she slipped me her number anyway and we’ve been texting ever since. We’re going out tonight.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You didn’t tell me about this before? I’m so happy for you! What’s her name?”

“Cassie,” Jonas told him with a soft smile. “I wish you could have seen her. She’s beautiful.”

“I hope to meet her someday,” he told his friend before lightly punching him in the arm. “So don’t screw this up.”

“And I hope to meet the boy from your lab someday,” he replied.

David shook his head. “You truly weren’t listening to a single word I said, were you? First of all, I barely know this guy. Secondly, he’s certainly not my type.”

Jonas just shrugged. “You made a face while talking about him, is all. Maybe I misread it.”

“Well, you did,” he replied, suddenly a little unsure.

* * *

David had never been one for parties for various reasons. Namely that they were sweaty and awkward and that underage drinking put his scholarships at risk. Back in high school at Xavier, he had attended a few parties, mostly because his girlfriend at the time liked them, but still, most of his party experience was kept within his close friend group.

At college, he didn’t have much of a reason to party at all. He had gone to a few at the beginning of freshman year he had attended a few with people he met through the Black Student Union and, while he still kept in contact with a few others from the club and attended the monthly meetings when he could, his primary friend ended up being Jonas from Computer Science who also wasn’t interested in parties so it wasn’t really a thing that he tended to do.

This week, however, he had been dragged along as a third wheel and designated driver for Jonas and Cassie. While he wasn’t pleased with having to go to this party, he genuinely liked Cassie from what he knew fo her thus far. She was incredibly kind but also strong-willed. More importantly, she saw past Jonas’ quirks and liked him for who he was.

But now he was at a party in an old abandoned barn that he was positive might just collapse in on them at any moment listening to shitty country music and watching couples drink and dance while he was still painfully alone.

“It’s painful, isn’t it?” a voice beside him said with a sigh.

He jumped and turned around only to find Tommy standing next to him, drink in hand, also gazing out into the crowd.

“I just wish Kate would have a party in a normal fucking place for once but no! She has to be trendy and have one beyond the range of Uber and as the resident single man, I have to be the designated driver,” he continued.

“But you’re drinking,” he replied with a raised eyebrow, fully expecting him to say stuff about how he wasn’t a  _ good  _ designated driver or how one drink didn’t count.

Instead, Tommy shook his head. “This is 100% Sprite, my good sir. At least Kate gets name brand for us poor sober souls.”

“Wait, Kate as in Kate Bishop?” he asked. “She’s the host?”

“Yup. While I disagree with her venue choices and everything about this music, she throws a good party.”

“Huh,” he replied. “It’s a small world, I guess. I know her girlfriend. We’re in the BSU together and we talk sometimes.”

“Maybe you know Eli too, then,” Tommy said. “He’s not here tonight because he’s at some political science conference in DC, but he’s my best friend.”

He shook his head. “I know of him since he’s the BSU President but I haven’t really interacted with him personally.”

“Haven’t  _ yet _ ,” he corrected. “It’ll happen at some point, seeing as he’s my best friend.”

“Why would I meet your best friend?” he asked.

“Why?” he repeated. “Because you and I are destined to be friends. The fact that you know Kate and America is proof of that.”

“Some flimsy evidence,” he said, trying to suppress a smile.

“What about the fact that we’re both here, yearning?”

“Yearning for what?” he asked. It wasn’t as if he had a thing for Jonas. He just wanted a relationship at times.

“Life,” Tommy responded simply. “We’re standing on the sidelines just watching all these people live their lives, desperate to jump in. But still, when I ask you to dance you’ll certainly say no.”

“I’m not much of a dancer,” he replied.

“Of course you aren’t but I still think you should give it a try,” Tommy told him. “I’ll drop it for now, though. Who belongs to you out there? I assume you’re also here to drive.”

He nodded and pointed in the crowd. “The guy wearing the mint button-up is my friend Jonas and the blonde girl dancing with him is his new sort-of-girlfriend, Cassie.”

“Holy shit! Our friendship truly  _ is  _ fate!” Tommy exclaimed, looking at him with wide eyes. “Dude, Cassie is one of my roommates!”

“I thought this was a medium-sized school but perhaps it’s smaller than I thought,” he said with a shake of his head. “Well, if I’m driving her home than I assume you’re in charge of others. America and Kate?”

“Yeah, and my brother and his boyfriend,” Tommy pointed out to a couple on the fringe of the crowd, slow dancing to a song that was surely written for something more fast-paced. One of them looked exactly like Tommy but with hair that was black compared to Tommy’s bleached blonde.

“Fifth wheel, ouch.”

“Not anymore,” he exclaimed, punching David in the shoulder. “You and me are going to tear up that dance floor. I don’t care if you’re a dancer.”

“I-” he started, but Tommy was already running toward the dance floor and smiling back at him brightly.

“C’mon!”

And, well, how could he say no to that?

* * *

Since the night at the party, David and Tommy had gotten much more friendly. Tommy sat in the front in class every day now and continued to impress him with his lab work. In addition, they had been texting quite often and David had come to realize that, even though they were vastly different people, he liked talking to Tommy anyway and valued him as a friend.

And, okay, sometimes David wondered what it would be like if they were more than just friends. Because Tommy was actually very cute and he had a bigger heart than he liked to let on and he managed to balance being in electrical engineering  _ and  _ being on the university track team, which was a miracle in its own right.

But a relationship between them was just unrealistic. In part because they  _ were _ so different. Differences in friends were manageable but in relationships, that kind of thing was probably much harder. In addition to that, Tommy seemed much less stable than David needed, always jumping from thing to thing without a second thought. And he didn’t seem like the type of person to settle into a relationship anyway.

The biggest reason they couldn’t be together, though, was that David was fairly certain that Tommy didn’t like boys. Sure, he was clearly fine with LGBT folks but it seemed like that didn’t extend beyond being a good ally. Sometimes Tommy talked about his ex-girlfriend Lisa, who he continued to hook up with through most of high school, or about how he and Kate used to have a more casual thing until she and America started to get serious, but he had never once mentioned a boy. And, okay, David hadn’t technically ever been with a boy so he was evidence that sexuality and who you had experience with were in no way related but Tommy was attractive and funny and, more importantly, had no qualms with hooking up, so it seemed like a guy was bound to come up at some point if he was interested in them.

Maybe the best thing to do was hold him at an arm’s length until this stupid crush passed. David liked to think that he often had power over his emotions, that he could dismiss feelings if he really needed to. After all, it had worked for him in the past. But he wasn’t going to be able to do that if Tommy continued to keep him up texting past 11 practically every night. He needed to get better at setting boundaries.

“Do you have to work this afternoon?” Tommy whispered to him during their Electronics lecture one Wednesday morning.

He shook his head and pressed a finger to his lips in a shushing motion. Their professor was clearly a hardass and, with their first exam in less than a week, David couldn’t risk losing any brownie points.

“Can you help me study?” he continued anyway. “We can go to that noodle place in town. On my dime, of course.”

“Yeah,” he said under his breath. “Just shut up.”

“Thanks, babe,” he whispered.

The professor turned to glare at them for a moment and suddenly David was eternally thankful for his dark skin tone which masked the deep blush resulting from all the heat rushing to his cheeks.

Surely, “babe” didn’t mean anything. Tommy was a flirtatious, joking type of guy. He was just teasing David because they were in class and why wouldn’t he. Or he said it by instinct. Maybe he was just extremely thankful. Anything except what David so desperately hoped that it meant.

He took a deep breath and blocked those thoughts from his mind. He should be focusing on BJT transistors right now. At least that was something more straight-forward.

* * *

“I just don’t get it!” Tommy exclaimed, throwing his pencil down and putting his face in his hands. “How am I supposed to remember all this shit? I barely passed circuits and this shit is like twenty times worse. How the fuck am I supposed to memorize these  _ graphs _ ?’

“Well, technically you’re supposed to derive them,” David pointed out. “Memorizing them would hardly do any good for learning about rectifiers.”

He gave him a helpless look. “That’s  _ worse _ ! Is it not enough that I remember that rectifiers linearize the signal? What about the big picture of it all?!”

“I think in this case the specifics matter,” he told him. “You barely passed circuits?”

Tommy avoided David’s gaze and shrugged. “I didn’t have the best teacher. And it was at 8. C’s get degrees, right?”

David, who had never gotten a C in a class in his life, gave him a pitying smile. “I suppose. I wasn’t trying to belittle you, by the way. I was just surprised, seeing as you’re so skilled with circuit building in lab.”

“Building it is one thing. Analyzing a picture and knowing exactly what to do with all the math is another,” he explained. “It’s just hard for me, I don’t know. I have trouble concentrating on all this stuff. I have ADHD and college has been particularly rough on me, no matter my passions. The only time I can truly clear my mind and get in the zone is when I’m running. Even then, it wanders sometimes.”

“Do you take any medication?” he asked. “Even if it’s something you haven’t done in the past, it might be worth looking into.”

He sighed. “Yeah, I’ve thought of that. I took meds in high school after a brief stint in juvie that I’d prefer not to get into. But then my shitlord of a father lost his job and we couldn’t afford it anymore. And then I moved in with my brother and technically I’m on their insurance but I’d rather not impose because it’s a weird situation.”

“But if your grades are this impacted by it-” he started.

“Yeah, I know,” Tommy replied, cutting him off. “It’s just, well you know that me and Billy are obviously biological twins and we got taken in by different people. I drew the short end, I guess but like shit happens. Anyway, we met in early high school, reconnected with our bio mom, and then I moved in with Billy and his adopted family. And like, they have money, but they also have two other kids besides Billy. And the vibe has always been so weird like they just don’t understand me for who I am which is  _ fine _ . Billy gets it, you get it, my friends get it. Hell, even my bio mom gets it and she lives in Europe. It’s just that with medical shit I have to rely on them and I really wish I didn’t.”

Tommy was breathing heavily now and looked as if he were about to cry. While David had never been the most attuned to what he should do in this type of situation, he set a comforting hand on top of Tommy’s.

“Breathe,” he told him in a gentle voice. “It’s going to be alright. Thank you for sharing that with me.”

He nodded. “Sorry, between the test and life in general, everything just builds up and then-” He pulled his hand out from under David’s to make an exploding motion.

“It happens to the best of us,” he replied. “Also, have you looked into student health insurance? It probably won’t cover as much but it might be a good way to become more independent.”

“No can do. I don’t have a job and thus cannot afford it,” he said with a sigh. “Maybe, if I get a good job over the summer, I can save up and re-evaluate next year. I just don’t have the time to fit a job into my schedule during the semester.”

David nodded. “I understand. If there’s any way that I can help you out, just let me know.”

He smiled. “I think that this is something I’m going to have to figure out for myself but thank you for the offer. And for watching me have a breakdown in the noodle shop rather than running away out of sheer embarrassment. What you can do, however, is help me study for this test. I still don’t have a clue as to what the fuck a bridge rectifier is.”

“I can definitely do that,” David told him. “And don’t worry, I think I’ve got a handle on this material  _ and  _ I have a relatively empty weekend so if you need any help, feel free to come over to my place whenever. That is, if you want to. You certainly don’t  _ have _ to.”

“I will definitely take you up on that offer,” he said with a grin. “Especially if it means I get to see your apartment. I’m expecting impeccable cleanliness.”

“Based on my guess as to what your place looks like, I suspect you will not be disappointed,” he teased.

Tommy clasped a hand to his chest dramatically. “Ouch, dude. I mean, you’re not wrong in any sense but you didn’t have to call me out on that shit.”

David couldn’t help but smile. Maybe he wasn’t going to be able to get rid of this silly little crush as soon as he thought, but at least he was going to be spending more time with Tommy.

* * *

The semester was nearly over and David still hadn’t been able to kick his feelings for Tommy and he certainly hadn’t mustered up the courage to admit them. After they both had performed excellently on the first exam, their study sessions became a more regular occurrence, now often featuring home-cooked meals and the occasional bottle of wine, now that Tommy was 21 and could buy it. Mostly, these study sessions were at David’s place, seeing as their study sessions often went too late for public places and Tommy had two roommates with their own lives.

David loved these study sessions and, while he had always had somewhat of a passion for learning, this was different. Because studying with Tommy was much more than learning the stuff on the page. It was learning another person too and laughing over dumb jokes and talking about things that he never told other people until long after he should have gone to bed. It was pausing to watch a dumb video from Kate’s Snapchat story and hearing Tommy vent about his other classes. It was about sitting just a little too close and staring just a little too long.

But it was all just in good fun, probably. After all, the semester was almost over and nothing serious had happened between them.

They had been studying together a lot less lately. Tommy had two exams in his other classes and he actually was comfortable with the material in Electronics which was absolutely fine, even if not seeing him slightly sucked. They had plans to go out to dinner at a big group in less than a week but that was hardly the same as those one-on-one moments.

And then, David came home from a shift at the IT building that had gone just a little bit long on Friday night only to find Tommy sitting in the hallway outside his apartment door, takeout bag from the noodle place in hand.

He looked down at him in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

Tommy raised an eyebrow as he stood up. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“Of course,” he said, perhaps a bit too quickly. “But I had no idea you were coming over.”

“It’s Billy and Teddy’s anniversary,” he explained. “I’ve been sexiled. Cassie is over at Jonas’ but I had nowhere else to go but here. I brought dinner though. I didn’t text you because I wanted it to be a surprise. Figured you’d be home by now.”

“My shift went late,” he told him, unlocking the front door to let him inside. “I’m extremely grateful for the noodles, by the way. I need that after being stuck in IT hell all night.”

“Listen,” Tommy said, scratching the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean to like avoid you these past few weeks or anything.”

“I didn’t think that you did,” he replied with a shrug, grabbing two forks from the drawer and sitting by Tommy on the couch. “It’s a busy part of the year. I get it.”

“Here’s the thing,” he said cautiously. “That’s not exactly the reason I haven’t been texting you and shit. Like, yeah, I had two tests but I also had two tests in a week in like late October so that doesn’t say a ton.”

“Well now I feel like you were avoiding me,” David said with a frown.

“I sort of was, I guess,” Tommy told him, dragging a hand across his face. “But not because I don’t like you or I was mad or some shit.”

He crossed his arms over his chest defensively. “Then why?”

“It’s just that-” Tommy scrunched up his face and took a deep breath. “Fuck, I’m terrible at this kind of shit.”

“What kind of shit?”

“ _ Emotional  _ shit,” he replied.

“Oh,” he said, a bit deflated. Tommy probably picked up on David’s feelings for him and wanted some distance. He couldn’t say that he didn’t blame him.

“Today isn’t Billy and Teddy’s anniversary. Sorry again. Sometimes I freak out and I lie about stupid shit it’s a terrible habit. I’m a terrible person.” David opened his mouth to interject but Tommy held out a hand to stop him. “The thing is, it’s almost winter break and I’m an idiot who can’t deal with his feelings. But I couldn’t let a month of not seeing you go by without saying something, so here it goes: I like you. Like, a  _ lot _ . I think you’re probably the smartest person I’ve met in my life and you’re so much funnier than you think you are and like you’re so  _ nice  _ like genuinely a great fucking person. And also super attractive and I’m not usually a glasses guy. So basically, I have no idea why a person like you would ever like a mess like me but I had to put it out there anyway.”

David didn’t know what to say. He wanted to scream and cheer and flip the fucking coffee table over. But, instead, he took a page out of Tommy’s book and tried something impulse.

He kissed him.

As far as kisses go, it wasn’t perfect. Sure, Tommy was very skilled, but he had caught him by surprise. David himself didn’t have much experience with kissing, not since high school at least. It was awkward and sloppy but still, it felt like the most amazing kiss that he’d ever had. Because there was so much feeling behind it. He had wanted to kiss Tommy’s smart mouth since before he even knew that he liked him and getting to do that now, knowing that he had feelings for him, well, could there even be something more spectacular?

“Wow,” Tommy panted as they pulled apart. “We should have done that ages ago.”

“Evidently,” he replied. “I’ve wanted to do that for, well, you have no idea how long.”

“Since you stood up for me on the first day,” Tommy admitted. “I didn’t know how to approach you, though. And then we were friends and it got more serious and I tend to screw up serious.”

“Not this time,” he said with a shake of his head. “I won’t let you.”

Tommy fell back onto the couch and groaned. “God, it’s almost break and then I won’t see you for a  _ month _ . Why do you have to live in fucking Chicago?”

“You could always visit me,” he suggested.

He raised an eyebrow. “And meet your parents? Honey, they are nowhere near ready for me.”

“We’ll work up to it,” David said with a roll of his eyes.

Tommy gripped his hand and squeezed it tightly. “I’m so glad I met you, David. Even under the most embarrassing, bizarre circumstance.”

He pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’m glad I saved your ass too.”


End file.
